Spyfall App: Review & Resource

At our first D Group for the year one of our new Student Leaders introduced us to the game ‘Spyfall’. We were immediately hooked! It’s such a fun game to play as a group, great as an icebreaker, and perfect for a fun element incorporating phones. Here’s how we play it:

Game objective:

If you are the Spy, your objective is to figure out the Location. If you are NOT the Spy, your objective is to figure out who is the Spy.

This is done by asking each player questions.

How to play:

Note: all players will need internet access to play the game.

Each player needs to download the free app, Spyfall (download for Apple and Android). In the app, one player can select the option create game which will generate a code. All other players select join game and enter that code. When all players have joined, one player can select start game to begin.

Each player will see a similar screen, something like this:

At the top of the screen is a countdown timer which will start automatically and countdown from 7 minutes.

Under the timer will be a message to let you know if you are the Spy or not. In the above image, you are NOT the Spy.

All players that are NOT the Spy will have the same Location. The Spy will have ???? as their Location.

All players (including the Spy) will have a Role. The Role tells players what their job is at the Location, and players use this information to answer questions. In the above example this player’s role is a Security Guard. The Spy will have ‘Spy’ as their Role.

Players then take turns asking questions to try and figure out either who the Spy is or what the Location is. One player asks a question to another player, who then answers and gets to ask the next question. For example:

Player 1 to Player 2: Is your Location mobile or stationary?

Player 2 to Player 1: Stationary.

Player 2 to Player 3: What hours do you work for your Role?

Player 3 to Player 2: 9 – 5.

Each time a player has a turn to ask a question they can direct it to any other player, but they can only ask one question. As you narrow down the search you can cross off players or Locations that you think are incorrect. Here’s an example of what the Spy would do:

At any point in the game when it is the Spy’s turn to ask a question, they can ask another player directly “Is your Location …” and win the game if they are correct. If they are incorrect they will lose the game. Otherwise, when the timer runs out all players point to who they think the Spy is.

We’ve played Spyfall as a group of 3 and a group of 9. In smaller groups it is easy to work out who the Spy is early in the game. In larger groups it tends to take a bit longer, however it is generally easier for the Spy to narrow down the location, depending on how cryptic or misleading everyone is with their questions!

Free game resource

Initially, thinking up questions to ask each other can be a challenge. If you’re the Spy and trying to bluff your way through the game it can be even more challenging! So to get your group off to a good start we’ve made a cheat sheet of some of our favourite questions (our students helped me to come up with questions). It’s a PDF download available in our library. If you’ve subscribed to our library and emails you can access it here, otherwise click here to sign up.

Let’s talk:

Have you played Spyfall before? What was the best question from your group?